Imagine you see a flyer advertising a free potluck. "Everyone welcome!" it says. "Wide variety available!"
And so you go and you bring a casserole with an ingredient label in case people have food restrictions/aversions and... the buffet table is filled with cookies. Every kind of cookie. You've never SEEN so many cookies!
And you're like, huh, okay, maybe not everyone is here yet. So you try to make a little space for your casserole dish and get dirty looks for nudging a plate of cookies to make room and nobody touches it. And that's fine. Not everybody likes casseroles.
Everyone is talking about how AWFUL savory dishes are. Everybody is talking about how desserts are the BEST kind of food, and anybody who eats anything else is just virtue signaling or brainwashed by Big Food Pyramid. Why would you eat anything other than desserts? Anything else is disgusting. And after a long day out in the wider world, where savory dishes are encouraged for every meal, isn't it GREAT that there's such an inclusive, welcoming space for people who love DIFFERENT kinds of food?
Maybe this was supposed to be a dessert-lovers space. And desserts are okay, you guess. So you try to talk about desserts with people but anytime you bring up, like, cake or pie, they look at you like you've grown a second head. "If you wanted cake or pie, you should have made one yourself," they say. "Learning to make something OTHER than cookies is just TOO HARD." Another person looks shocked. "I'll have you know, someone smashed my face into a cake at a birthday party once! I shouldn't be FORCED to eat cake after that!"
And like. You're not trying to force anyone to make or eat cake! You just thought this was a space to talk about desserts!
And you notice that other people haven't really listed ingredients like allergens on their cookies, and when you bring that up, people look even MORE offended. "Are you saying I'm not allowed to make peanut butter cookies? This is a safe space for desserts!" one says. "Well maybe we can put the cookies with the nuts in them on a separate table so people with allergies can avoid them," you suggest. "How DARE you say we should BAN cookies with nuts in them!" people say, and now you have an angry crowd around you.
"Well, you know, I thought this was supposed to be an inclusive space," you try. "I was just suggesting ways we could be MORE inclusive..."
"You just hate cookies!" people in the crowd say. "Why did you even come here if it was to attack us for liking cookies?" "She didn't even BRING anything for people to eat, she doesn't even COOK!"
And it doesn't matter that you've participated in community bake sales since you were in high school, or that you have a killer snickerdoodle recipe you got from your grandma that you would have brought if you'd known, it doesn't matter what you say. You're now known as the Outsider who came in just to viciously harass poor defenseless bakers, who wants to abolish the whole event because nobody is catering to you specifically, who is clearly just jealous because nobody touched your nasty old casserole.
So you leave. And the next week, you see another flyer for the same event. It still says "Everyone welcome!"
This story is about fandom.
